SCHNEIDER
v.
RUSK, SECRETARY OF STATE

U.S. | 1963-02-18
No. 251
372 U.S. 224 Supreme Court of the United States (1963) Positive Treatment
Also reported at: 9 L. Ed. 2d 695 · 83 S. Ct. 621 · SCDB 1962-051 · 1963 U.S. LEXIS 2097
Cited by 58 cases

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Synopsis

A naturalized American citizen challenged a federal statute providing for loss of citizenship based on continuous residence in a foreign state, arguing it violated constitutional protections. The Supreme Court held that the constitutional questions raised were substantial enough to require a three-judge District Court panel rather than a single judge, and vacated the lower courts' dismissal to allow the case to proceed on the merits.

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Per_curiam
Per Curiam.

Per Curiam.

Trial of this case should have been before a three-judge District Court convened pursuant to 28 U.

S. C. §§ 2282, 2284, as petitioner requested. Her complaint explicitly-sought an -“injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of . . . [an] Act of Congress” — § 352 (a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 U.

S. C. § 1484 (a)(1), which provides that a naturalized American citizen shall lose his nationality by “having a continuous residence for three years in the territory of a foreign state of which he was formerly a national or in which the place of his birth is situated . . . .” The District Court concluded that petitioner’s complaint presented no substantial constitutional issue and denied petitioner’s motion to convene a three-judge court, relying on Lapides v. Clark, 85 U.

S. App.

D. C. 101, 176 F. 2d 619 (1949), cert. denied, 338 U. S. 860, in which the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had directly upheld the predecessor of a companion provision, § 352 (a)(2) of the 1952 Act, 8 U.

S. C. § 1484 (a)(2), which deprived the naturalized American of his citizenship for residing for five years in any foreign state. The Court of Appeals’ per curiam affirmance was also based on Lapides. Although no view is here intimated as to the merits of the constitutional question in the present case, we disagree with the conclusion of the courts below as to the substan-tiality of that issue. The intervening decisions of this Court in Perez v. Brownell, 356 U. S. 44, and Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, reveal that the constitutional questions involving deprivation of nationality which were presented to the district judge were not plainly insubstantial. The single-judge District Court was therefore powerless to dismiss the action on the merits, and should have convened a three-judge court. Ex parte Northern Pac.

B. Co., 280 U. S. 142, 144; Stratton v. St. Louis S.

W. R. Co., 282 U. S. 10, 15; Ex parte Poresky, 290 U. S. 30; Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstein, 370 U. S.

713. The judgments below are vacated and the case is remanded to the District Court for expeditious action consistent with the views here expressed.

So ordered.

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Citator

Cited By (16 total)

  • Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U.S. 1 (U.S. 1965)
    …nt, infra, pp. 17-18, we cannot agree that it is so insubstantial as to compel a district court to read it out of the complaint and refuse to convene a three-judge court. Compare William Jameson & Co. v. Morgenthau, 307 U. S. 171; Schneider v. Rusk, 372 U. S. 224. Indeed, we explicitly noted in Kent v. Dulles, supra, at 129, that if we had held that the Secretary’s refusal to issue a passport to petitioner in that case was supported by the 1926 and 1952 Acts, we would [*7] then have been obliged to consider…
  • Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163 (U.S. 1964)
    …gitimate reasons. Reversed. Mr. Justice Brennan took no part in the decision of this case. The exceptions relate, inter alia, to residence abroad in the employment of the United States and are not relevant here. For other aspects of the ease see 372 U. S. 224.…
  • Green v. Bd. OF Elections OF the City OF NEW York, 380 F.2d 445 (2d Cir. 1967)
    …ith identical lenses for detecting just when lack of merit is “obviously” such. Although a court of appeals must conscientiously review a single district judge’s determination that lack of merit not only exists but is obvious, see Schneider v. Rusk, 372 U.S. 224, 83 S.Ct. [*449] 621, 9 L.Ed.2d 695 (1963), little is gained by a finical attitude on the latter score. Although it has long been held that § 2281 applies to the denial as well as the grant of injunctions, Ex parte Metropolitan Water Co., 220 U.S. 5…
    1 / 2

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